Anyone here good with VLC?

Discussion in 'The Guru's Pub' started by BigBlockTowncar, Mar 21, 2017.

  1. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I am attempting to get old family VHS movies from the 1980s and 1990s recorded to my computer so I can throw the old tapes away.

    I bought a recording device which converts component video/s-video into USB. It works within VLC just fine. The problem is that the output files are .avi format and are huge.

    My first attempt on my SSD stopped working because I only had 50gb left over and the drive ran out of space. I tried again on a larger HDD and the finished file was 128gb! There were no errors in the process and everything seemed normal, however, when I tried to playback the video, VLC said that the index was broken or missing. I am guessing that because the file size is so large it does not record properly. The smaller test clips I did, 30 seconds or so, worked just fine and did not have any index problems.

    Is there a way I can use this device, but change the output format? These are VHS tapes, the oldest from about 1985, so the visual quality is not the best and the sound has a lot of tape hiss. I would like to get the best output quality possible, but I cannot even manipulate .avi files of this size without getting errors or crashes in most of the programs that I tried.
     
  2. ScoobyDooby

    ScoobyDooby Guest

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    You should be able to find some info here
     
  3. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I had googled that and found that page.....there is some conflicting information, but basically, when you get to the step of "select a destination file" that implies that the recording is already done.....I need to be able to record and convert at the same time, or simply set the recording output file type to mp4 to begin with.

    You can browse for existing .mp4s for instance, but I don't see what that is doing.
     
  4. CrazY_Milojko

    CrazY_Milojko Ancient Guru

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    Years ago I've used to convert my old VHS tapes to AVI via PCI TV tuner card Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert, then compress AVI file to DivX 3.x or XviD and record them to DVD. Those cards 2nd hand are dirty cheap now, almost no one use them anymore.

    Edit
    OP, did you tried to install latest KLite Codec Pack 13.0.0.0 Full and playback those AVIs via Media Player Classic Home Cinema that comes with KLite?
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2017

  5. nhlkoho

    nhlkoho Guest

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    I know most people will say no to this but Windows Movie Maker has quite a few options and file sizes that might work for you. It's a free download from Microsoft too. I've used it recently to cut and splice multiple videos together from a camera
     
  6. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I think I got it to work. The VLC descriptions in the conversion page are not really intuitive, but I'll try it tomorrow and see. For whatever reason, none of the programs I have tried using can detect the USB audio from this device, so I had to route the RCA plugs directly into the line in on my ASUS Xonar.....that seems to work.
     
  7. yasamoka

    yasamoka Ancient Guru

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    Those are uncompressed video streams, hence the huge file size.

    You would need to convert those videos first with a codec such as H264 or H265. Handbrake would do that job brilliantly. It relies on the FFmpeg project.

    If you have any questions about these codecs, Handbrake, or FFmpeg, go ahead, I'll help you out.
     
  8. nhlkoho

    nhlkoho Guest

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    Handbrake is great, but he'd have to get the videos onto his computer first.

    OP if you still have that 128GB file try to load it into Handbrake and select High Profile preset. While it won't perform miracles and convert your videos to HD or anything, it does a pretty good job of cleaning up some of the artifacts.
     
  9. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I already deleted it. I could try it again in the uncompressed format....however, the computer had a hard time just manipulating that file. I will try the VLC thing and take a look at the quality of the mp4......VHS is already low quality, but I don't want to lose anything.
     
  10. yasamoka

    yasamoka Ancient Guru

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    The problem with selecting an output format on hardware is that the encoding process, from uncompressed video to compressed video, takes place in hardware, which is faster (and seamless), but produces worse quality than encoding them on a processor with the likes of Handbrake.

    Video format conversion applications should have no trouble with handling huge uncompressed video files as that's exactly that they're made for.

    Also, try playing back these files with MPC-HC, rather than VLC. MPC-HC seems to handle whatever you throw at it. I had a 60GB 4K H264 60Mbps video file that it loaded and displayed flawlessly.

    I believe you're working with a maximum of 720x576 24FPS 24-bit video which would need 720 x 576 x 24 x 24 = ~238.878Mbps or ~28.48MB/s. Your hard drive is fast enough to playback the video.
     

  11. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I can record it again tomorrow uncompressed and then try to use handbrake. I am not confident that the index file will build correctly the second time around. Does handbrake fix these permanently?

    VLC won't even respond to the request...it begins to rebuild the temp index but stops after about 1% and allows skipping in the video for about 30 seconds, then it just plays on from there.
     
  12. Fox2232

    Fox2232 Guest

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    Just resize them before conversion (or set up "capture pin" on device) to something like 512x384. 640x480 is already above VHS capability.

    At that resolution, you should have no problem to use compression right at time of capture.
     
  13. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    I just finished re-recording in the uncompressed format and will now try handbrake and see what it does.....file index of course did not work correctly after finishing the VLC recording.
     
  14. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    The conversion on handbrake drops the file size on the "high" setting drops the output .mp4 to 2.6gb from the original avi of 130gb.

    Going straight to mp4 in VLC does work and I don't really see a difference in quality....however, there is still some sort of error in the file. Movie maker cannot open the VLC mp4, but it can open the handbrake conversion.

    I guess I will just record all of these to avi and then convert them.

    Is that high setting going to be the best from a VHS source? I don't notice any change really from avi to mp4....the actual tape is 32 years old.
     
  15. nhlkoho

    nhlkoho Guest

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    you can add the decomb and denoise filters which might increase quality a bit. i think on high it defaults those to a low setting.
     

  16. yasamoka

    yasamoka Ancient Guru

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    Use MKV, not MP4. MP4 files tend to have issues with headers.
     
  17. BigBlockTowncar

    BigBlockTowncar Ancient Guru

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    Default for high profile puts a decomb filter but no denoise. I ran the denoise on a second test and there just isn't much difference.

    The first tape was from1985 and some unknown brand....not sure what camera was used on that one. The two tapes I did today were from 1987 and are Maxell. These two were recorded with a Hitachi camcorder and are pretty good quality all things considered.



    What do you mean issues with headers?
     
  18. SplashDown

    SplashDown Maha Guru

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    It's a windows video extension if I'm not mistaking, play with windows media player.
     
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  19. zipper

    zipper Maha Guru

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    I suppose any decent player should be able to open it - I tried Wmv with VLC, Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic and even IrfanView. All worked.
     
  20. zipper

    zipper Maha Guru

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    The eol Windows Movie Maker was easy to use and free. I downloaded it from an altermative source and have done my small video edits with it.
     

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